The Supreme Court held that an accused cannot claim default bail merely because a copy of the chargesheet was not supplied. It also ruled that failure to file additional chargesheet copies under Section 193(8) of the BNSS does not invalidate the chargesheet.
The Supreme Court held that not providing a copy of the chargesheet to an accused cannot be used as a basis for seeking default bail.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh upheld a decision of the Bombay High Court, which had rejected a man’s plea for default bail on the ground that he was not supplied a copy of the chargesheet.
The Court observed that the failure to file additional copies of the chargesheet under Section 193(8) of the BNSS would not invalidate the chargesheet itself.
It further noted that, as under the earlier CrPC, the right to default bail continues to arise only if the chargesheet is not filed within the applicable period of 60 or 90 days.
The Court said,
“Once the chargesheet is filed, in compliance with the form prescribed under Section 193(3) BNSS, within the aforesaid period, the right to default bail ceases. Non-compliance with Section 193(8) of the BNSS cannot be construed to give the same result as Section 187(3) of the BNSS,”
Section 187(3) of the BNSS, 2023, deals with default bail.
The ruling came while considering a plea by an accused arrested in a CBI case relating to an alleged large-scale cyber fraud involving about Rs 3.81 crore.
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The CBI alleged that unknown cyber criminals used sophisticated digital methods to extort money from individuals, including impersonation tools and forged documents, and that they were allegedly aided by bank officials in depositing the fraud proceeds into bank accounts.
The accused had approached the Bombay High Court for default bail, arguing that while the chargesheet was submitted within the prescribed time, he was not served with a copy of it.
The Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts, holding that the non-supply of a chargesheet copy cannot be treated as a ground for default bail.